The phone rang once again.
Miles away, Arthur paused. He'd changed his mind. He slammed the receiver back into its cradle, turned and looked outside at the moon again, wondering if he would ever understand (a) women, and (b) himself.
There was no further noise from the telephone. Slowly, bit by bit, the demon started to relax.
The phone had rung twice, stopped, and not resumed. Probably it had been someone who realized abruptly that they'd dialed a wrong number and hung up quickly to avoid embarrassment. It was, after all, midnight. Midnight, when the powers of creatures such as it were at their strongest. Midnight, when Gwen DeVere, lover of Arthur Pendragon, would cease to exist. For she had not stirred in the slightest when the phone rang, which meant that she was definitely easy pickings.
It leaned over her bed, grabbed her shoulder, and roiled her roughly onto her back.
It had thought she was asleep. But she was staring at it with eyes wide open and bright with fury.
The demon's first thought was, Drat, this may be a little tougher than I thought. Just how tough, it was soon to realize.
Gwen's right arm shot up, grabbing the demon by the left horn. She pulled down quickly, and unsurprisingly, the demon's head and body went with it.
Her left hand appeared. It had the skull-shaped knife. The tip was at the throat of the demon.
'Want to whistle when you breathe?' asked Gwen.
The demon gulped. It had a large Adam's apple which bobbed up and down and bumped against the point of the knife.
'Please,' whispered the demon urgently. 'Don't kill me. Don't-'
Gwen's voice was hoarse with strain and tension. 'If I wanted to kill you, I could have done that already.'
'Then why haven't you?'
'Because, you ugly spud, I need you. I need you to take me to Morgan.'*
'Ohhhh, you don't want to go to Morgan,' said the demon. The back of its head was pressed against Gwen's lap, its body twisted around. Its arms, however, were free. Gwen felt the tension in its body begin to build and she pressed the knife ever-so-more gently against its throat. A small trickle of greenish blood appeared. The demon gasped.
'Oh, yes,' purred Gwen. 'I do. I do want to go to Morgan. And you'll take me there.'
'But she'll kill me! And then she'll kill you.' The demon tried to strike a conversational tone.
'Let's talk about this sensibly. We're both caught in circumstances here. No sense both of us dying, right? So let me kill you quickly and painlessly, and at least one of us can go on living.'
'And what advantage would that be to me?' said Gwen.
The demon paused a moment, its thick eyebrows furrowing. 'I'd ... I'd never forget you.' But even the demon didn't sound completely convinced by that. And Gwen certainly wasn't.
'Nice try,' said Gwen. 'Take me to her. Now!'
'All right! All right!' The demon suddenly started to breathe rapidly. Gwen looked down at it frantically. 'What the hell is it now?'
'I'm-' The demon gasped repeatedly. 'I'm hyperventilating.'
'Oh, Christ.'
The demon's chest continued to rise and fall rapidly. 'A-hunh! A-hunh! A-hunh!'
'Oh, Jesus Christ in the foothills. Wait here.'
Gwen rolled out of the bed, dashed into the bathroom, and came back moments later with some Valium and a cup of water. She leaned over the demon and proferred them, her hands trembling but her face a mask of intensity. The demon took the offerings, swallowed the tranquilizers and washed them down quickly. Then it lay back full on the bed and tried to calm down. 'I'm ... I'm sorry--'
'Be quiet. Just get yourself together.' She shook her head. 'All the demons in the world and she has to send me one who goes hyper in tense situations.'
'Look!' said the demon. 'There's demons and there's J 56
demons. We're all pretty much alike to you mortals, like you're pretty much all alike to us.
Some of us just handle tension better than others. If you'd just had the common decency to stay asleep and let me gut you like I'd planned, none of this would have happened.''
'Gee, I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you,' she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
'You're not exactly Miss Tough-as-Nails either. Look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your eyes are glazed.'
'Of course they are,' snapped Gwen. 'I haven't slept for four days now. I was certain Morgan would want to make some sort of attack on me prior to the election, to demoralize Arthur.
But I didn't know exactly when. I'm so loaded with uppers, I have to wear lead weights on my belt to keep my feet on the floor.'
'Oh, dear.'
'How do you think it feels, lying there at night, staring at the ceiling, waiting for someone or something-no offense- to come after me? I'd hoped it would be Morgan. So she sent a flunky. Okay, that's cool. As long as the end result is the same.'
The demon regarded her with open curiosity. Gwen had pulled her strawberry-blond hair back in a tight bun. She wore a tight-fitting black sweater, black slacks, and black shoes.
'You're not at all the way Morgan described you. She made you sound like .. . like ...'
'Like a wimp?' She nodded. 'Circumstances change people.' She waved her knife. 'Come on, up. Let's go. Let's move it.'
The demon nodded slowly. 'My name's Morty,' it said. 'You performed a service for me, helping me out when I was having my ... my problem a moment ago. The rules say that means I have to serve you now.'
'Great. Fine. Let's go.'
Morty stood and weaved slightly from side to side. 'Ohhhh boy,' it muttered.
'What is it now?'
'That tranquilizer is reacting more powerfully than I expected. I'm feeling really woozy.'
'Well, let's get moving before you get too woozy to do anything useful. Where's your car, or whatever?'
'We transport. Just give me a second.' It squinted at her. 'You got a compact?'
'In the nightstand. Why, you planning to freshen up?' she asked incredulously.
It went over to the nightstand, rummaged through the drawer, pulled out the round compact and tossed it to Gwen. She caught it and looked uncomprehendingly.
'I'll explain on the way,' said Morty. 'I'll fill you in on a little trick I taught a guy named Pericles.
You'll love it.'
The demon walked over to her, raised his arms and said, 'Hold me around the waist.'
Gwen complied. Her face against the demon's back, she said, 'Is this necessary for me to be transported with you?'
'Not at all,' said the demon. 'But I get off on it.'
Before Gwen could reply, they vanished in a puff of black smoke.
As they reappeared outside Morgan's New Jersey home, Morty had just finished filling Gwen in on the little trick it had taught Pericles.
Gwen looked up, saw the ominous house and shuddered. But something else took her attention more immediately. It was pouring rain. She hugged herself tightly and wiped the water from her face.
Morty was looking up in dismay. 'Aw, nuts. It was so nice out earlier.'
Gwen frowned. 'Yeah. Yeah, it was. In fact...' Her eyes widened even as her clothes started to become plastered to her skin. 'I heard a weather report earlier. It was great weather tonight in New York and New Jersey! They weren't expecting heavy rain until-'
She turned on him, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck. 'You idiot!' she shrieked into his face. 'It was supposed to rain like this tomorrow! Not today. You jumped us through time!'
'Impossible!' bleated Morty. 'If I had, your watch would have been automatically recalibrated through the nature of the spell I use. Look at your watch.'
She looked at her watch. It was a digital. It read eight-ten P.M., November seventh.
